THE BURNING BUSH 103 



are growing lusty, they have much ado to thrust off the 

 older leaves which even yet are not wholly browned. Like 

 them, too, oak and beech and hornbeam, especially in the 

 coppiced form, are ' fast of their leaves ' through winter ; and 

 this quality gives especial virtue to a hornbeam hedge, which 

 perhaps is the ' fastest ' of the trio, though we miss the 

 luminous richness of the beech. 



Any one who has been to Australia, or any land where all 

 the trees are evergreen, will feel how much of the zest of 

 English scenery comes from the deciduous trees. Painters 

 of autumn colouring delight in the contrast of the firs and 

 pines ; but there is contrast enough in the changing leaves. 

 The colours are best of all on the hedgerows, where no ever- 

 green is. Thankfulness for this gift of colour in the final 

 scene of the pageant is prompted by the real melancholy 

 of much that grows at the hedgerow foot. There is nothing 

 more lifeless than the withered bents of grass, than the 

 shrivelled strands of the goosegrass, than the hollow parsley 

 which in spring made a green bed for the hedge. They 

 suggest all the gloom which is the professional attribute of 

 autumn. But above them, rich in the deepest of all 

 autumn colours, the May bush rises ; berries, stems and 

 leaves, all of a royal colour which we would scarcely ex- 

 change for the freshness of spring itself. 



